Tell Shemshara (ancient Shusharra) (also Tell Shimshara) is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, northeastern Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.
The site was occupied, although not continuously, from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) until the 14th century CE. A small archive recovered from the Middle Bronze Age layers (early second millennium BCE) revealed that, at least in that period, the site was called Shusharra and was the capital of a small, semi-independent Turukkean polity called māt Utêm or "land of the gatekeeper" ruled by a man called Kuwari acting as governor under a larger Hurrian state.
Archaeology
The site was first recorded in 1955 during an archaeological survey of the Ranya Plain, which was to be flooded by the reservoir of the planned Dukan Dam. In 1957, a Danish team of archaeologists started a rescue excavation because the site would be flooded by Lake Dukan once the Dukan Dam would be finished. The Danish excavation was directed by Professors Harold Ingholt, who also excavated the citadel mound of Hama, and Jørgen Læssøe. It was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Danish Government Foundation for the Promotion of Research. About 146 cuneiform tablets were found, mostly letters and most in one location, believed to have been stored in a pot on excavation level V. The excavations were continued in 1958 and 1959 by Iraqi archaeologists of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) under the direction of Abd al-Qadir at-Tekrîti. The work was never published but about 103 cuneiform tablets (45 well preserved and the rest in poor condition) tablets were found during the 1958 excavations in rooms near the findspot of the earlier tablets but in loose soil above excavation level V. They are all administrative texts. The excavations have revealed that the site was occupied at least from the Hassuna period onward and the latest occupation phase dates to the 12th–14th centuries CE. The objects found during the Danish excavation were divided between the National Museum of Iraq and the National Museum of Denmark. So far, the prehistoric material of the Hassuna layers and the majority of the archives from the second millennium BCE have been published.
In 2012, teams of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East and the Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP) conducted new investigations at the site, as part of a larger archaeological project focussing on the entire Ranya Plain. High water prevented work in 2016-2017 but in October 2018 low levels allowed a short season of work.
The site and its environment
Tell Shemshara sits along the Little Zab, a tributary of the Tigris. Its strategic location in the northeastern corner of the Ranya Plain in the Zagros Mountains gave Shemshara control over travelling routes in all directions, particularly toward the north and east. Shemshara is a tell, or settlement mound, that can be divided in two parts; a high main mound and an elongated lower mound to the south. The main mound is about 75 meters wide at the bottom and about 25 meters wide at the top, whereas the lower town is long and high. Shemshara is now partially submerged under Lake Dukan. It has lost 164,000 cubic meters of volume to erosion since 1957 and at high water levels becomes an island.
Occupation history
The excavations at the main mound revealed 16 occupation layers, ranging in date from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) to the 14th century CE. A single radiocarbon sample from the basal level of the site, 3m below level 16, provided a date of 7322–7180 BC (IntCal13).
Hassuna Period
Layers 16–9 dated to the Hassuna period. This occupation was characterized by rows of stones that are interpreted by the excavators as foundations for mudbrick walls, a pebble floor and a clay basin in the final occupation layer. Pottery, which has only been found in abundance in layers 13–9, shows stylistic links with that of Hassuna and Tell es-Sawwan. Obsidian was the preferred material for stone tools, with flint making up only 15 percent of the total assemblage. Whereas the flint was procured locally, the obsidian was obtained from two sources in eastern Turkey – one as yet unidentified, the other one being the volcanic Nemrut Dağ more than away from Shemshara. A unique piece in this assemblage is a dagger of over in length, broken in four pieces due to a fire. Other artifacts that have been found at the site include stone bowls, bracelets and quern-stones and small objects made of bone.